# Interaction between marshalling and DOM

Sometimes you may notice that JAXB is producing XML with seemingly unnecessary namespace declarations. In this section, we'll discuss the possible causes and how to resolve this.

## Caused by DOM mapping

The #1 cause of extra namespace declarations is due to the DOM mapping. This mainly happens because of a schema construct that forces XJC to generate a property with DOM. This includes the use of wildcard `<xs:any/>` (see more about this compiling-xml-schema-mapping-of-xs-any), as well as `xs:anyType` (which can also happen by omission, such as `<xs:element name="foo"/>`, which is interpreted as `<xs:element name="foo" type="xs:anyType" />`.

During unmarshalling, when a subtree of the input XML is converted into XML, JAXB copies all the in-scope namespace bindings active at that time to the root of the DOM element. So for example, given the following Java class and XML, the DOM tree that the `child` field will get will look like the following:

### Bean with wildcard

    @XmlRootElement
    class Foo {
      @XmlAnyElement
      public Element child;
    }

### Instance with subtree matching wildcard

    <foo xmlns:a="a" xmlns:b="b" xmlns:c="c">
      <subtree xmlns:c="cc">
        <data>a:xyz</data>
      </subtree>
    </foo>

### DOM tree to be stored in Foo.child

    <subtree xmlns:a="a" xmlns:b="b" xmlns:c="cc">
        <data>a:xyz</data>
      </subtree>

Note that the two namespace declarations are copied over, but `c` is not because it's overridden. Also not that JAXB is not touching the whitespace in document. This copying of namespace declarations is necessary to preserve the infoset in the input document. For example, if the `<data>` is a QName, its meaning would change if JAXB unmarshaller doesn't copy it.

Now, imagine what happens when you marshal this back to XML. Despite the fact that in this example neither `b` nor `c` prefixes are in use, JAXB cannot delete them, because it doesn't know if those attributes are significant to the application or not. Therefore, this could end up producing XML with "extra namespace declarations" like:

### DOM tree to be stored in Foo.child

    <foo>
      <subtree xmlns:a="a" xmlns:b="b" xmlns:c="cc">
        <data>a:xyz</data>
      </subtree>
    </foo>

Resolving this problem is not possible in the general case, but sometimes one of the following strategy works:

1. Sometimes schema author incorrectly assumes that `<xs:element name="foo"/>` means `<xs:element name="foo" type="xs:string"/>`, because attribute declarations work somewhat like this. In such a case, adding explicit `type` attribute avoids the use of DOM, so things will work as expected.

2. The wildcard processing mode " `strict`" would force a typed binding, and thereby eliminate any DOM mapping.

3. You might be able to manulally go into the DOM tree and remove unnecessary namespace declarations, if your application knows what are necessary and what are not.